Why product demos and sampling are marketing gold

By April 14, 2016General

Let’s start with a question. If you were on the market for a new Hoover, would you rather read a 50 page brochure about it, or test the product for yourself?

You can spend months designing the most stunning glossy brochure, but nothing quite beats the feeling of seeing a product being demoed, or trying it out for ourselves without having to buy it first.

Demoing and product sampling enable consumers to see how products perform without needing to hand over their credit card.

Demoing can consist of:

– Showing consumers how a product works

– Giving away product samples, so consumers can experience it themselves

– Enabling consumers to experience a larger, more expensive product for free

Here are some examples of product demos and sampling, both physically and virtually, that show just how powerful the technique can be.

Go Pro User Generated Demos

Go Pro gave away free cameras to top athletes, adventure sports and travel enthusiasts, in order to have them tested in extreme environments, while being endorsed by influential sportspeople.

The stunning, high quality footage that came back was edited by the GoPro media team and put on their website. The videos communicated Go Pro’s high quality and unique ability to film in situations other cameras can’t.

Nooka’s AR Watch Try-On

American lifestyle brand Nooka fixed a removable paper watchband to their print ads, with augmented reality technology embedded in them.

Readers downloaded an app to their computers, removed the band from the ad, put it on their wrists, held it up to their computers and the band turned into the watch style and colour they wanted to try on.  It provided a quasi real-life idea of what the watch would look like on their wrists.

Febreze’s smelly social experiment

During the 2012 London Olympics, Febreze found the smelliest sport it could – and settled on wrestling.

To demonstrate Febreze’s effectiveness in hiding bad odours, they sprayed sweaty jock straps and wrestling boots of the Azerbaijani Olympic wrestling team with Febreze, and dangled the apparel in front of the noses of Londoners, who were blindfolded and asked to guess the smell.

Answers were videotaped, and guesses included, “strawberry milkshake”, “passion fruit”, “citrus”, and “floral bouquet”.  With the demo, the effectiveness of the product was clear for all to see (and smell).

Hotcow is a non-traditional creative agency that specialises in experiential marketing that goes viral. Our campaigns generate buzz through crowd participation, PR and content sharing. Contact us on 0207 5030442 or email us on info@hotcow.co.uk.